Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[Nebraska]

 

Edited April 1 by Nebraska

[ignatius]

 

[Ivan Ooze]

Fucked up

[decibal cooper]

Good interview with that guy Josh Paul, who was in charge of US arms transfer requests from foreign governments (and ensuring that they would not be used indiscriminately against civilians) who resigned from the US Dept of State after raising concerns in the immediate aftermath of October 7th attack that just turning on the faucet for sending Israel the heavy weapons on a weekly basis would maybe not help things in the mideast (but his concerns were never addressed by his superiors, the secretary of state and president):

 

[MaartenVC]

Israel moves to shut down Al Jazeera after new law allows for ‘security threat’ bans on international media:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/01/middleeast/israel-al-jazeera-media-law-intl-hnk/index.html
 

Spoiler

CNN  — 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to shut down news network Al Jazeera following the passage Monday of a sweeping law allowing the government to ban foreign networks perceived as posing a threat to national security.

Netanyahu said he intended “to act immediately in accordance with the new law” to stop the Qatari-based news outlet’s activity in the country, according to a post on social media platform X following the passage of the law.

Al Jazeera Media Network, which has produced dogged, on the ground reporting of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, slammed the decision in a statement, vowing it would not stop the network from continuing its “bold and professional coverage.”

The new law gives the prime minister and communications minister authority to order the temporary closure of foreign networks operating in Israel – powers that rights groups say could have far-reaching implications on international media coverage of the war in Gaza.

Its approval by Parliament Monday comes months into Israel’s war against Hamas and as Netanyahu faces mounting public pressure – and large public protests – over his handling of operations in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s government has also long complained about Al Jazeera’s operations, alleging anti-Israeli bias.

In his statement on X Monday, the prime minister accused the network of being a trumpet for Hamas and accused it of “actively participating in the October 7 massacre and inciting against IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers.”

Al Jazeera, which is funded in part by the Qatari government, said these were “slanderous accusations” that “jeopardize” not only the reputation of Al Jazeera but also the safety and rights of its employees worldwide.

Rights groups condemned the move to shutter Al Jazeera and the law’s potential implications.

In a statement the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was “deeply concerned” by the new legislation.

“The law grants the government the power to close any foreign media outlets operating in Israel, posing a significant threat to international media within the country,” program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said, adding it would “contribute to a climate of self-censorship and hostility toward the press.”

Blocking Al Jazeera “marks an alarming escalation, and Israeli efforts restrict the freedom of the press and further limit the access that citizens of the world have to the daily realities in Israel and Palestine,” Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir told CNN.

The White House also called reports of the move to shutter Al Jazeera “concerning.”

“The United States supports the critically important work journalists around the world do. And that includes those who are reporting in the conflict in Gaza,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday during a press briefing.

The move also comes during a critical period for relations between the Israeli and Qatari governments. The Gulf State has played a key role in ceasefire negotiations in the on-going war.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 when Hamas carried out a deadly attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages, according to Israel.

Israeli forces have since launched months of ongoing bombardment and ground operations in the Hamas-ruled enclave of Gaza, where the death toll stands higher than 32,000, according to the Ministry of Health in the strip.

Targeting Al Jazeera

The new law places a raft of restrictions on Al Jazeera in Israel, giving the government authority to take action against offices operated by the network and confiscate equipment and reporters’ press cards. It can also restrict its broadcasts and public access to its website.

Al Jazeera has an office in Jerusalem, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza.

Since the start of the war, it has produced critical, on-the-ground coverage of Israeli military operations and their humanitarian impact on the embattled enclave.

Last month, a United Nations spokesperson condemned the reported arrest and assault of Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul while he was reporting from the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City.

Several Al Jazeera reporters and their family members have also been killed in Israeli air strikes, according to the network.

On October 25, an air raid killed the family of Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, including his wife, son, daughter, grandson and at least eight other relatives, it said.

Al Jazeera broadcast Dahdouh as he walked into the morgue to view the bodies of his family in a heart-wrenching moment that provided a window for the world into the grief and loss experienced by many Gaza residents as Israeli’s military operations got underway.

Israeli’s passage of the law and move to ban the network comes amid mounting concerns from press freedom groups about causalities among journalists operating in war zones there and what they describe as obstruction of journalistic work by Israeli authorities.

As of April 1, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ preliminary investigations showed at least 95 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began.

Palestinian journalists, including those working for a handful of international news agencies still operating inside Gaza, are vital witnesses to what is happening there. Israel’s military have taken some foreign reporters inside Gaza on a small number of escorted trips since October 7. But both Israel and Egypt, which control Gaza’s borders, have so far refused to let international journalists have unfettered access.

 

Edited April 2 by MaartenVC

[ignatius]

 

[ignatius]

Edited April 6 by ignatius

[ignatius]

[Walter Ostanek]

[Alcofribas]

17 hours ago, Walter Ostanek said:

lmao

[ignatius]

21 hours ago, Walter Ostanek said:

particular kind of logical/mental gymnastics going on over there.. pushed along by many things.. taught to dehumanize palestinians in schools etc. 

[Alcofribas]

2 hours ago, ignatius said:

particular kind of logical/mental gymnastics going on over there.. pushed along by many things.. taught to dehumanize palestinians in schools etc. 

Don’t even have to talk about “dehumanizing” in this instance bc indiscriminate bombing obviously kills animals. In past conflict the IDF have even targeted zoos. Pathetic!

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, Alcofribas said:

Don’t even have to talk about “dehumanizing” in this instance bc indiscriminate bombing obviously kills animals. In past conflict the IDF have even targeted zoos. Pathetic!

yeah.. i mean the culture and general population. there is some resistance but there is all kind of reports/videos etc on how israel school system has very dehumanized versions of palestinians where they're portrayed as "less than dogs" and "savages" and this kind of thing.. all as part of their lessons in history from the time they are small children. it's like israeli civics class and it's how they teach the children in israel to feel ok about all the killing of civilians and how it's fine to destroy their homes and push them off their land. and this gets propagated up the ladder in the social structure and political structure. there is some resistance but not much. 

resistance to their end goals and mainstreaming of their doctrine is crushed quickly especially now. 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-03/ty-article/.premium/from-the-first-grade-to-the-grave-israelis-are-educated-to-dehumanize-palestinians/00000189-b817-d821-afdd-bb37927a0000

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/13/its-not-shocking-to-see-israeli-children-celebrate-the-gaza-genocide

Edited April 10 by ignatius

[chenGOD]

On 4/9/2024 at 8:31 AM, Walter Ostanek said:

So Palestine should build a dome made entirely of living things (besides the Palestinians).

[Alcofribas]

22 minutes ago, ignatius said:

yeah.. i mean the culture and general population. there is some resistance but there is all kind of reports/videos etc on how israel school system has very dehumanized versions of palestinians where they're portrayed as "less than dogs" and "savages" and this kind of thing.. all as part of their lessons in history from the time they are small children. it's like israeli civics class and it's how they teach the children in israel to feel ok about all the killing of civilians and how it's fine to destroy their homes and push them off their land. and this gets propagated up the ladder in the social structure and political structure. there is some resistance but not much. 

resistance to their end goals and mainstreaming of their doctrine is crushed quickly especially now. 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-03/ty-article/.premium/from-the-first-grade-to-the-grave-israelis-are-educated-to-dehumanize-palestinians/00000189-b817-d821-afdd-bb37927a0000

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/13/its-not-shocking-to-see-israeli-children-celebrate-the-gaza-genocide

I totally get you, brother. I was just laughing at the degeneracy of decimating urban areas and being like “I’M veGaN” 

Too few have the courage to condemn Hamas for using feline shields

 

[chenGOD]

35 minutes ago, Alcofribas said:

condemn Hamas for using feline shields

That's quite the euphemism

[usagi]

ongoing lols @ all the babybrained kneejerk reactions this has brought out of Israel's celebrity defenders living in the lap of luxury a world away from all the death and destruction perpetrated in their name.

on the downside, a true disappointment to find that Rachel Riley, a woman I used to admire for her brains and humour and beauty altogether, is just as dumb as the rest of them.

[chenGOD]

6 minutes ago, usagi said:

ongoing lols @ all the babybrained kneejerk reactions this has brought out of Israel's celebrity defenders living in the lap of luxury a world away from all the death and destruction perpetrated in their name.

on the downside, a true disappointment to find that Rachel Riley, a woman I used to admire for her brains and humour and beauty altogether, is just as dumb as the rest of them.

I was confused at first because I thought Rachel Riley was famous for getting stuffed full of donkey dick, but then realized that's Riley Reid.

[iococoi]

19 minutes ago, usagi said:

on the downside, a true disappointment to find that Rachel Riley, a woman I used to admire for her brains and humour and beauty altogether, is just as dumb as the rest of them.

Edited April 10 by iococoi

[decibal cooper]

Have not checked this thread in a while, figure someone may already have commented on this, and also that this would fit just as easily in the artificial intelligence thread, but it is Mossad/IDF's artificial intelligence program(s) for target selection in Gaza. The name of the main program is named Lavender. There are two other programs, one is called Gospel and the other one has the sinister name 'Where's Daddy' (this one apparently used to target men and their families together in their home (to drop so-called 'dumb' or non-precision bombs, provided by biden admin on the homes of these ppl). I posted before of the Palestinian professor and poet Refaat Alareer, who was sheltering in a UN safe zone before leaving to stay with his family (he apparently knew that he had a target on his back and did not want to put anyone in the safe zone at risk). IDF bombed his sister's house, killing both of them and his sister's children I believe.

Here is the article from +972 magazine: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

Quote

According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”

Both governments, Israel and America, have been asked on the record about this program. Not sure what Israel said, but I saw a clip of John Kirby at White House press conference say he would 'look into it' - did not confirm existence of this program.

From reading the article, it sounds like the purpose was to analyze facial recognition and other identity markers of palestinians in gaza and then to rank hamas targets on a 0 to 100 scale of high ranking (must kill) to lower ranking. The point also seems to avoid engaging combatants or anyone directly on the battlefield, but to wait until they return to their residence so as to kill the whole family (I guess that in this way the IDF kills two birds with one stone: they kill as many people as possible while also making sure that the progeny of any hamas member or even non-combatant does not become radicalized and continue the fight against Israel). I am too ignorant on AI to understand how exactly these programs work, but it seems like it is just image recognition, location data, and processing power that are the key things, using all of these to develop kill lists and then determine where and when to strike so as to kill as many people as possible.

The article is very long and contains an interview with the journalist who wrote it.

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, decibal cooper said:

one is called Gospel

google and amazon are partners in the gospel targeting Ai. 

[usagi]

^ I saw an article directly relevant to all that just earlier, which I am going to post here in full rather than just linking. this is from The Conversation (source).

--

Israel accused of using AI to target thousands in Gaza, as killer algorithms outpace international law

 

The Israeli army used a new artificial intelligence (AI) system to generate lists of tens of thousands of human targets for potential airstrikes in Gaza, according to a report published last week. The report comes from the nonprofit outlet +972 Magazine, which is run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists.

The report cites interviews with six unnamed sources in Israeli intelligence. The sources claim the system, known as Lavender, was used with other AI systems to target and assassinate suspected militants – many in their own homes – causing large numbers of civilian casualties.

According to another report in the Guardian, based on the same sources as the +972 report, one intelligence officer said the system “made it easier” to carry out large numbers of strikes, because “the machine did it coldly”.

As militaries around the world race to use AI, these reports show us what it may look like: machine-speed warfare with limited accuracy and little human oversight, with a high cost for civilians.

Military AI in Gaza is not new

The Israeli Defence Force denies many of the claims in these reports. In a statement to the Guardian, it said it “does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives”. It said Lavender is not an AI system but “simply a database whose purpose is to cross-reference intelligence sources”.

But in 2021, the Jerusalem Post reported an intelligence official saying Israel had just won its first “AI war” – an earlier conflict with Hamas – using a number of machine learning systems to sift through data and produce targets. In the same year a book called The Human–Machine Team, which outlined a vision of AI-powered warfare, was published under a pseudonym by an author recently revealed to be the head of a key Israeli clandestine intelligence unit.

Last year, another +972 report said Israel also uses an AI system called Habsora to identify potential militant buildings and facilities to bomb. According the report, Habsora generates targets “almost automatically”, and one former intelligence officer described it as “a mass assassination factory”.

---

Read more: Israel's AI can produce 100 bombing targets a day in Gaza. Is this the future of war?

---

The recent +972 report also claims a third system, called Where’s Daddy?, monitors targets identified by Lavender and alerts the military when they return home, often to their family.

Death by algorithm

Several countries are turning to algorithms in search of a military edge. The US military’s Project Maven supplies AI targeting that has been used in the Middle East and Ukraine. China too is rushing to develop AI systems to analyse data, select targets, and aid in decision-making.

Proponents of military AI argue it will enable faster decision-making, greater accuracy and reduced casualties in warfare.

Yet last year, Middle East Eye reported an Israeli intelligence office said having a human review every AI-generated target in Gaza was “not feasible at all”. Another source told +972 they personally “would invest 20 seconds for each target” being merely a “rubber stamp” of approval.

The Israeli Defence Force response to the most recent report says “analysts must conduct independent examinations, in which they verify that the identified targets meet the relevant definitions in accordance with international law”.

 

Israel’s bombing campaign has taken a heavy toll on Gaza. Maxar Technologies / AAP

As for accuracy, the latest +972 report claims Lavender automates the process of identification and cross-checking to ensure a potential target is a senior Hamas military figure. According to the report, Lavender loosened the targeting criteria to include lower-ranking personnel and weaker standards of evidence, and made errors in “approximately 10% of cases”.

The report also claims one Israeli intelligence officer said that due to the Where’s Daddy? system, targets would be bombed in their homes “without hesitation, as a first option”, leading to civilian casualties. The Israeli army says it “outright rejects the claim regarding any policy to kill tens of thousands of people in their homes”.

Rules for military AI?

As military use of AI becomes more common, ethical, moral and legal concerns have largely been an afterthought. There are so far no clear, universally accepted or legally binding rules about military AI.

The United Nations has been discussing “lethal autonomous weapons systems” for more than ten years. These are devices that can make targeting and firing decisions without human input, sometimes known as “killer robots”. Last year saw some progress.

---

Read more: US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years

---

The UN General Assembly voted in favour of a new draft resolution to ensure algorithms “must not be in full control of decisions involving killing”. Last October, the US also released a declaration on the responsible military use of AI and autonomy, which has since been endorsed by 50 other states. The first summit on the responsible use of military AI was held last year, too, co-hosted by the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea.

Overall, international rules over the use of military AI are struggling to keep pace with the fervour of states and arms companies for high-tech, AI-enabled warfare.

Facing the ‘unknown’

Some Israeli startups that make AI-enabled products are reportedly making a selling point of their use in Gaza. Yet reporting on the use of AI systems in Gaza suggests how far short AI falls of the dream of precision warfare, instead creating serious humanitarian harms.

The industrial scale at which AI systems like Lavender can generate targets also effectively “displaces humans by default” in decision-making.

The willingness to accept AI suggestions with barely any human scrutiny also widens the scope of potential targets, inflicting greater harm.

Setting a precedent

The reports on Lavender and Habsora show us what current military AI is already capable of doing. Future risks of military AI may increase even further.

Chinese military analyst Chen Hanghui has envisioned a future “battlefield singularity”, for example, in which machines make decisions and take actions at a pace too fast for a human to follow. In this scenario, we are left as little more than spectators or casualties.

A study published earlier this year sounded another warning note. US researchers carried out an experiment in which large language models such as GPT-4 played the role of nations in a wargaming exercise. The models almost inevitably became trapped in arms races and escalated conflict in unpredictable ways, including using nuclear weapons.

The way the world reacts to current uses of military AI – like we are seeing in Gaza – is likely to set a precedent for the future development and use of the technology.

[decibal cooper]

10 minutes ago, ignatius said:

google and amazon are partners in the gospel targeting Ai. 

Yeah, I had not looked into it but I assumed that CIA and american tech workers were most likely involved in some way. Once all is said and done I highly doubt that anyone is going to be held accountable unfortunately, even if the ICJ case gets traction after the war. It will probably be just like the American torture scandal from Iraq War days, with a few underlings getting prosecuted.

[ignatius]

6 hours ago, decibal cooper said:

Yeah, I had not looked into it but I assumed that CIA and american tech workers were most likely involved in some way. Once all is said and done I highly doubt that anyone is going to be held accountable unfortunately, even if the ICJ case gets traction after the war. It will probably be just like the American torture scandal from Iraq War days, with a few underlings getting prosecuted.

i posted this earlier in the thread but worth watching if you haven't checked it out yet. it's age limited because some shots of carnage.. so you'll have to be logged in.

edit: also

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68796689

Quote

 

A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told the BBC how she was struck by the high number of wounded children she operated on.

Dr Victoria Rose said a "huge amount" of her work was on children under 16, including many under six.

She said she had treated people with bullet wounds, burns and other injuries. 

She added the lack of food available in Gaza meant patients were not strong enough to heal properly.

The "most shocking bit" was that during the trip she only operated on one person who at 53 was older than her, she told the BBC's Today programme. 

"Everybody else was younger than me. A huge amount of my work was under-16s. Quite a worrying proportion of my work was six and under."

Dr Rose was carrying out reconstructive surgery on people who had been wounded.

"It was burns, shrapnel injuries, removing foreign bodies from tissue, reconstructing defects in faces, removing bullets from jaws, that kind of thing," she said.

The lack of food in Gaza - where the UN has warned of imminent famine - also meant many sick and injured people were not strong enough to fight off infection or heal properly from their wounds, she added.

"The people on my operating table were undernourished. A lot of them were cachectic," she said, referring to people experiencing extreme weight loss and muscle wasting.

 

 

Edited April 12 by ignatius

[auxien]

Quote

Two of the Israeli government’s most hardline ministers on Sunday urged a firm response to the overnight Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urging a response that "resonates throughout the Middle East" and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israel should "go crazy."

Smotrich, the head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, said that if Israel hesitated, "we will put ourselves and our children in existential danger."

In a video statement, Smotrich called this a “moment of truth,” saying, “If our response resonates throughout the Middle East for generations to come — we will win.”

Ben Gvir, the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, said Israel’s response must not be “weak,” and that “the concepts of containment and proportionality are concepts that passed away on October 7,” the day of the Hamas attack on Israel.

Neither Smotrich nor Ben Gvir are members of Israel’s war cabinet.

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-04-14-24/h_bf3d86fbdd612692fa143987ea7428d2

i'm sure everyone paying any attention to this saw that Iran's tried to attack Israel, with almost zero success (US was part of the defense taking out some of the missiles going towards Israel) but Israel is almost certainly going to attack Iran, to which Iran is already stating they'll 'hit back harder if Israel retaliates' so...yknow, expanded war already happening.

short video laying out some of the preceeding events, with a couple of notable facts: first, this is the first time Iran has directly attacked Israeli soil, and two, at least some Iranian citizens view this partly as retaliation for the slaughter in Gaza. this is exactly the kind of recipe for continued escalation. already multiple countries involved.

Zelensky over in Ukraine is speaking about today/yesterday as well.

Edited April 14 by auxien